"I think I may have a future as a disembodied head," Gore joked in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday. "I'm not sure that any political calculation would have steered me toward this part, but it was great fun doing it."

"Futurama," which airs Sunday on Fox TV, chronicles the 30th-century life of a hapless time-traveler named Fry, his raunchy robot pal Bender, and their cyclopean space pilot Leela. It is the brainchild of "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening.

Gore's head is introduced at a global-warming convention as "the inventor of the environment and first emperor of the moon."

The former vice president also had a guest role on "Futurama" in May 2000 while his daughter, Kristin Gore, was a writer on the show.

Her advice this time around?

"Loosen up" Gore said with a laugh.

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Salma Hayek returned to the city where she got her start in show business to defend "Frida," the Miramax Films release in which she stars as Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.

Salma Hayek: The actress returned to Mexico City to defend her latest film "Frida."

AP Photo

Many U.S. critics call the film one of the most important Hispanic-themed movies in years. But Mexican critics have accused Hayek of turning her back on Mexico to impress U.S. moviegoers.

Some charge "Frida" sensationalizes the lives of Kahlo and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera. Others complained that it downplayed the couple's leftist political views.

"It's not a documentary," Hayek said Friday. "They want to see a biography but you can't do a biography in two hours."

Hayek, who served as one of the film's producers and says Kahlo is one of her heroes, said the movie tells the tale of how Kahlo and Rivera's relationship started out as "a specific love story and became a story of unconditional love."

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - Novelist Pat Conroy was once reviled at his alma mater, The Citadel, for writing books inspired by his experience at the military college.

On Friday, he was signing books outside its gates.

"I never thought this would happen," Conroy said between signatures. "This is my first signing at The Citadel. That's amazing."

Conroy's first book, "The Boo," published three years after his graduation in 1970, was banned on campus. His 1980 work, "The Lords of Discipline," was a brutal portrait of integration at a Southern military school.

The school refused to let producers use the campus for the 1983 movie.

But on homecoming weekend, Conroy's literary achievements were celebrated by The Citadel community.

The 57-year-old author recently published "My Losing Season," about his final year of college basketball at The Citadel.

Right next to Conroy at the table, smiling almost as wide, was the model for "The Boo," Col. T. Nugent Courvoisie.

"I don't think either he or myself expected this was possible," said Courvoisie, a former professor and assistant commandant.